


Of Funerals and New Beginnings

by TheCarmineWanker



Category: Winx Club
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27995349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCarmineWanker/pseuds/TheCarmineWanker
Summary: AU in which Marion died in the battle against the witches.
Relationships: Oritel/Stella (Winx Club)
Kudos: 2





	Of Funerals and New Beginnings

Being revived by Bloom and returning to the newly restored Domino to be reunited with his other, disembodied daughter who Bloom then restored to her body using her fairy dust, was a difficult experience for Oritel, at least partially because he was doing it without Marion by his side. She had died in the battle against the witches whereas he had only been petrified, trapped in stone with only his own thoughts to keep him company for the past 20 years or so. That, in many ways, seemed to be a big contributor to the difficulties he was currently experiencing.

See, where he had had about two decades to grieve his wife and come to terms with her death, Bloom had not. For Bloom, she had recently found out that she was adopted and, then, only just discovered that her birth parents might still be alive, trapped in Obsidian. She had thought that she would be getting her mother back along with her father just to learn that she had died all the way back during the fight with the witches and, now, she was grieving the mother she had come to believe was still alive and had lost before she had the chance to meet her.

The other issue, of course, was that Bloom wasn’t the only one who had truly thought that Marion was still alive, trapped like Oritel. This was because he had been the only member of the Company of Light who was present when she died. The others had no idea and so, when they discovered that Oritel might still be alive, they, reasonably enough, assumed that Marion would be as well. All of this led to the current situation - a belated funeral for his late wife with no body and many people, including his daughters and members of the original Company of Light, mourning her loss as though she had died yesterday.

As irrational as he knew it was, Oritel felt guilty that he wasn’t grieving with them even though she was his wife. He found that, while supporting Bloom and Daphne through their grief was hard enough, being put in the position of having to commiserate with dozens of other people was overwhelming and exhausting. It wasn’t long before he excused himself to take a very necessary break.

When he reached the balcony, he took a deep breath, immediately feeling a little better as the cool night air filled his lungs. It was quiet out there, all the din of the main hall was faded and barely audible to him. He couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty about leaving the reception of his wife’s funeral like that and not continuing to stand by his daughters’ sides but, at the same time, he knew that ducking out had been necessary for him and that Marion, at the very least, would understand. He stood there, lost in his thoughts, until someone came up next to him, startling him. It was one of Bloom’s friends that he had briefly met, the one with the blonde hair, though he forgot her name.

“I noticed you left and wanted to see if you’re okay.”

“Why?” That came out much more rudely than he intended and he rushed to correct himself. “I mean, you don’t know me, so why would you check in on a stranger?”

“Honestly? Because you’re Bloom’s family but also because I needed to get out of that. I’ll take hearing about all of your problems one on one like this over having to listen to like ten different people’s stuff all at once.” He smiled at that.

“Well, since you asked, my current problem is that I had about 20 years in Obsidian to mourn her loss and move on. Now, I’m watching as everyone else mourns her for the first time while I’m not, even though I was her husband.” He froze, realizing what he’d just said. That was the first time he’d ever referred to himself as her husband in the past tense.

“Wow, that must _seriously_ suck. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be to listen to everything they’re saying when you’re in a position like that.” He nodded in agreement.

“More than anything, I feel guilty that I’ve already moved on and can’t grieve with them, even though I know that’s stupid.” The girl shook her head.

“It’s not. You’re watching your daughters and old friends mourning your late wife while you, her husband, aren’t, so of _course_ you’re going to feel guilty about it, even though you shouldn’t.”

“You really think so?” She rolled her eyes.

“Obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have said it. But, for the record, I know they’d all understand if you explained where you’re at with all of this. No one knows that you were conscious the whole time you were petrified or whatever, so we all just kind of assumed that this is as fresh for you as it is for everyone else.” He hadn’t actually considered that.

“I . . . didn’t realize. Now that you say it, it seems obvious, but it never occurred to me. Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re very welcome.”

“At the risk of offending you, could you tell me what your name is? I know we were introduced earlier but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.” She smiled.

“Stella.”

. . .

Oritel had found that conversation with Stella to be quite helpful. It went really well when he explained to everyone how he’d been awake and aware the whole time he was in Obsidian and, as such, had had all that time to mourn his wife and move on. If anything, that garnered even more sympathy than the assumption that he had just lost his wife ever had, even though that hadn’t been his intention.

It also gave him a much different first impression of Stella than most people got, which he realized as she began to frequent the castle more to spend time with Bloom, who had moved in more permanently to help with the reconstruction of the kingdom. Had it not been for that conversation, he was sure that his first impression of her would have been of her being a vain, vapid girl. He found it a tad upsetting when he thought of how many people made surface-level assumptions about her and never got to delve deeper.

He discovered that he enjoyed talking to her, even when she wasn’t being serious at all or had just launched into a tangent about some aspect of the compositions of her favorite designer at the moment. It was in listening to her talk about such things that he gained an appreciation for how both intelligent and passionate she really was. Bloom and her other friends thought he was just being nice and had the patience of a saint for listening to Stella’s tangents but, in truth, he thoroughly enjoyed them. He appreciated how her face would light up and her speech would get faster and more excited as she talked about her interests.

Likewise, she loved that he actually listened to her, and had said as much. Where her friends let her go off about stuff while only pretending to listen, she could tell that, somehow, for some reason, he _actually_ listened. It was unprecedented, really. It was why, sometimes, when she wanted to talk and actually be heard, she’d just go find him and not even bother with the others.

In return, he came to be comfortable with sharing his problems with her and running ideas by her. When he was stressed out about politics, he knew that he could rant about it to her and she would listen and when he was trying to make decisions about such things, he valued her input. She listened well and he knew he could always trust her to give her honest, unfiltered opinion. The other Winx became used to this and found it perfectly normal and routine for him to pop in and steal Stella for a moment to ask her about something or for her to stop in the middle of a tangent, say “You know what? Screw this,” and go find him to finish the thought.

The issue was that, somewhere in there, he had the unfortunate realization that he had, at some point, developed feelings for her. On one hand, he was glad that, at the very least, he wasn’t still married but, on the other, he recognized that she was his daughter’s friend, that she was almost two decades younger than him, and, by having these feelings, he felt like he was betraying her trust. He didn’t let this change their arrangement, though, because doing that would just make it clear that something was up.

. . .

One day, he couldn’t put his finger on it, but Stella was acting differently. When she asked to talk to him, he obliged, leading her to the same balcony where they had their first conversation and had had so many since then. His concerned doubled when she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before speaking.

“I like you. A lot. I don’t know how and I don’t know when but I just do and I’m sorry.” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Why are you apologizing?” Her breath caught and she looked at him with wide eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“If you’re worried about what I think, don’t be.”

He took a step closer. She took him by surprise, grabbing him, pulling him in, and kissing him. It was hot and sweet and seemed to not last nearly long enough before she pulled back.

“Is that what you meant?” Her perfect lips curved into a coy smile.

“Yes, it was.” The smile on her face spread.

“Good.”

With that, she pulled him in and captured his lips once more. Later on, they could figure out how to go about breaking the news to Bloom and everything else but, for now, all that mattered was that they were there, together, on that balcony where everything began, reveling in their newly discovered love.


End file.
